How Grad School Made Me Realize that Frugality Rocks

Frugality was something I had been practicing since I was a college student. However, after I got a real job, our frugality kind of got stuck. We used cloth napkins, I shopped sales and at Wal-Mart, but nothing really changed. We moved to a cheaper apartment with a washer and dryer, which helped with the laundry bills.

We kind of bopped along our merry way, taking lunches, saving money...not much going on. By this time my husband was in graduate school, but with me working full time, it did not affect us that much. Actually, he earned almost as much as I did. (That is to say, not much.)

Then I decided that I wanted to go to graduate school. I hated my job, and it had been getting worse. But could we afford it?

Yes! Because we had saved a ton of money. I applied to school and got a teaching job which waived my tuition and paid a stipend. Before I left my real job, I stocked up on shampoo, deodorant, toilet paper, spices, and things like that. I knew that with our budget cut so drastically, we would have to belt tighten, and I did not want to do without these things. I way overpaid on most items, as I did not have coupons or time to wait for sales. If I did this again, I would start stockpiling as soon as I was pretty sure it was something I wanted to do.

With my stipend and tuition waiver, I did not need to take out loans. It was a small stipend (about 1000 dollars a month) but with my husband's pay, it was more than enough if we stayed with our frugal ways.

Grad school was where I really started to notice the spending habits of my peer group. I think my generation is going to be a mess ten years from now with money. If even half of us are like the people I went to school with, I worry about the future. I know that my age group is in a lot of debt, but I had never been so close to people who were living the debt before. Nearly every single person (who talked about money-that was most of my fellow students) was in substantial credit card debt, had massive student loans, etc. Watching my peers helped me see how small cuts do make a difference, and being frugal was worth it.

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